


and the sun pours down like honey on our lady of the harbour

by romans



Category: Chronicles of Narnia (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-26
Updated: 2011-12-26
Packaged: 2017-10-28 03:40:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/303330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romans/pseuds/romans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: Men wrote songs about Susan the Gentle long after the train crash. (Narnia ficlet for caramelsilver).</p>
            </blockquote>





	and the sun pours down like honey on our lady of the harbour

She always called him Leo, no matter how much it made him grimace. He bumped into her in a cafe in London, when he was hungover and broke, and she bought him a cup of coffee and watched him drink it, her gaze speculative and a little maternal. She didn't look like the type of person to fall in with perfect strangers on a whim- her suit perfectly tailored, vertiginous heels spotless, her lips precisely colored with lipstick. But she did.

He had a sense that he wasn't the first one she'd taken a fancy to.

She slept with him that night and every night for the next three weeks, except for Sunday nights, when she stayed at home in her tiny flat by the Thames and prayed. She always came back to him flushed with energy, effervescent and somehow a little larger than life. She was only five years older than him, he knew that, but on those days he felt as if the gap was ten times longer.

"Come down to the river," Susan said, one night. She was lounging in his bed wearing nothing but a little golden cross around her throat. A cigarette smouldered brightly between her slender fingers.

"Now?" he asked. She stubbed out the cigarette and reached for her dress.

So he followed her, hands buried in the pockets of his coat, wishing he'd brought his cigarettes with him. The wind was bitterly cold, and the first gust was so cool and fresh and clear that he felt as if he was, for the first time in years, finally breathing properly again. The city loomed up around him like an enchanted forest, and the stars were clearer and brighter than they'd been in years.

"This way," she said. Her boots sank into the damp sand on the banks of the river, and when she turned back to smile at him he felt as if he'd never seen her before. He wasn't high, he knew that. What he was feeling was the complete opposite of the blissed-out haze that he'd felt so many times before. The water lapped at the shore rhythmically, again, and again, and again, and he could almost hear a song in it.

She was standing at edge of the water, waiting for him, a small dark silhouette in the night. The moon was full that night, and a line of white light shot across the water like a road. She took his hand in hers when he stopped beside her, and crouched down.

"Look," she said, breathlessly. She was nearly forty but she tugged his hand like a child. He looked. The white light of the moon made the water opaque and silvery, like a mirror. She tugged on his hand again, and suddenly he saw a flash of a face in the water, like a reflection. It was gone almost before he saw it, and a moment later he thought he saw a green pasture. Susan let go of his hand and reached out towards the water, as if she could touch the images. A face, nearly human, looked back up at them through the rippling waters, and a webbed hand reached back.

Susan laughed breathlessly and leaned forward, falling to her knees in the shallow water.

"They're still here," she said, to herself.

She reached down and touched the surface of the water. Just for a moment it looked as if she was touching the hand in the reflection, and then it disappeared. There was only the murky water of the Thames and a faint sliver of light from the moon.

 

When he woke up in the morning, she was gone. There was no sign of her in his flat, except for the oranges in a bowl on the kitchen table and the empty teacups scattered around his room.

He thought about the stories she had whispered in his ear, then. About other worlds, and enchanted wardrobes, and vast snowy wastes that hadn't seen spring for a hundred years.

She had left him a note.

Take care, Leo, and never forget yourself.

He never saw her again, and sometimes he wondered if he hadn't simply dreamed her up. But he never forgot.


End file.
